(3.5/PF) So level 10 PC's walk into a kobold lair...

[Yeturs]

And they find traps!

HI! So, Here is the deal. I love kobolds. They are the coolest little boogers. Now, I want to design a dungeon based on the kobolds best friend, the trap! This dungeon should be designed to counter size medium creatures, but not specifically the party members. Therefore, I would like any help I can get on general traps I can use that would do enough damage to hinder the PCs.

I have always been pretty good with design, but never good at numbers. DCs and saves have always been hard for me to get just right, so please, suggest if something is too hard or to easy.

My first idea, the Crushing Cube: "Before you is a stairway leading up to an iron laced door. This stairway is obviously designed for the little scaly humanoids you saw earlier, but you could climb it uncomfortably (Need to squeeze)

Something is a bit odd about the stairs, however. A groove follows their curve all the way to the floor, and then abruptly turns and stays parallel to the floor."

The top half of the staircase hides false stairs. Every other stair will collapse if 50 lbs of pressure or more are applied to them. The inside of the false stairs is a small pit, large enough for a mans leg to fit. It is covered with downward pointed spikes designed to prevent the target from moving.

Collapsing a false stair triggers another trap, the cube. A large stone cube falls from the celing in from of the door. It has two pegs on either end, and momentum forces those pegs to follow the groove along the staircase. The cube weighs 1 ton, and is designed to kill anyone in its path. It moves quick, but a reflex save allows you to escape the room in time. There is a penalty for this save for each person in the room (scrambling to get through the door) and no save is allowed for anyone whos leg is stuck.

The sovereign bridge: "This tipsy bridge allows access into the cave on the far side of this canyon."

A tipsy rope bridge allows anyone to make a balance check to pass it at half speed. Half way over the bridge, however, the ropes are coated with a special kind of sovereign glue that sticks only when it is dark. Therefore, anyone passing their hand over the glue will become stuck to the bridge. Any shaking on the bridge (Such as stuggling to get free) while it holds a 50lbs passenger is enough to cause it to fall, as the ropes holding it up come untied.

The glue is, hopefully, going to stop them from casting spells or getting off the bridge in time for it to hit the bottom of the canyon, 50 feet down.

Any more ideas? I am going to post any more I get here. My goal is to not use magic or advanced kobolds as much as I can, with cheap items being the exception. However, I would love any ideas the playground has for cool, mechanical, original traps!

[Kuulvheysoon]

One question: Have you ever heard of Tucker's Kobolds?

If not, Google them. NOW.

You will not be disappointed.

[Yeturs]

I have heard of tuckers kobolds, and they are wholly responsible for my love of kobolds.

Hell, I even named a kobold warchief Tucker for chiggles once.

Unfortunately, the trick here is so have my party. So, I am in need of new traps and shenanigans. I mean, I plan to use a lot of ideas, mainly how the party should never get to kill a kobold.

Hopefully it has been so long they wont see this coming...

[ericgrau]

As a baseline I'd start with arrow slits and lobbed objects. Especially fire and smoke as both are simple to get and yet effective. It's a lot more plausible than having gallons of an expensive magic item or well shaped 1 ton blocks of stone requiring thousands of man-hours. Not that they can't also go all out on more important traps later.

Building up from there wood is a nice cheap material. Rope bridges as you touched on. Or even simple breakaway stairs with a weight limit. Secret panels can reposition kobolds from one area into another so they can move and lob objects or fire crossbows from a new location. These should also have backup traps and/or very tight corridors in case the players discover one. Spamming cheap poison (so even at 1 failed save out of 4 people are still affected) can wear down player resources in ways that cure spells won't fix. They only have so many restorations. Greasing corridors with mundane grease can create a big mess if there is a threat attacking the PCs from behind arrow slits. Especially if the grease is flammable. 1d6 fire damage per round btw, which is worse than you might think once you remember it's ongoing for a long time and is on top of other attacks. Even with high level magic like dimension door maybe the passage turns a corner so the caster can't see a useful teleport target. Yet when players aren't around the passage is still usable, perhaps even helpful for sliding carts.

Then on top of that add more fancy options.

It's not just about saving the kobolds gp. It also imposes physical limits on the traps rather than making them all powerful. This allows the players options to invent more creative solutions when overcoming them rather than merely rolling high or being absolutely doomed until the DM deems otherwise. And once you know how the mechanism works, maybe things like breakaway panels can't be overcome with skill rolls at all. On top of all that is the coolness factor of simple devices causing the players trouble.

I think I'll flesh out the grease passage:

This 200 foot S shaped passage has the floor covered entirely in grease and oil. In the outward walls are many arrow slits (+8 AC) with kobolds stationed. The kobolds hide out of sight (+10 to hide check from improved cover) and wait until a character is at least 20 feet into the grease (if not more). Then they open fire with crossbow bolts, dealing sneak attack damage against the flat-footed balancing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/balance.htm) characters. Once a character gets closer to the middle a kobold lobs a flaming bolt or a lit flask of oil and ignites the grease, which quickly spreads to the entire area then burns for several minutes (1d6 per round, no save). The smoke (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#smokeEffects) provides 20% concealment, but otherwise does little since most characters can hold their breath longer than the encounter. A narrow vent brings in fresh air for the kobolds. Several spots in the passage have 10 foot wide weight triggered panels that drop into 20 foot deep pits (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/traps.htm#dcPits). While normally not difficult to search for and walk around or jam, delays like these are a problem when you're taking damage from fire and bolts. Especially if you don't have your own way out and a party member must return to save you. Especially if you hit your 2nd pit and 14 rounds of holding your breath (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#suffocation) doesn't seem like plenty of time anymore. Past the end of the passage is a secret panel that leads behind the arrow slits. Once the characters start making it near the end of the passage, kobolds may exit and flee to the next area to join their friends.

From there you can add magic items like a minor necklace of fireballs for more damage, alchemical splash weapons, tanglefoot bags, etc.


One more quicky, the big red button trap:

Simple rule of adventuring: if there's an empty room, a way in, another way out, and a lever or button or switch or whatever, 9 times out of 10 an adventurer will activate it. And that's your trap trigger. The doors can lock, smoke come in, a pit open, whatever you want. Simple, dangerous to intruders, safe to kobolds. Bonus points if it has a "do not pull" sign and yet it tempts your group even more.

[Starbuck_II]

The sovereign bridge: "This tipsy bridge allows access into the cave on the far side of this canyon."

A tipsy rope bridge allows anyone to make a balance check to pass it at half speed. Half way over the bridge, however, the ropes are coated with a special kind of sovereign glue that sticks only when it is dark. Therefore, anyone passing their hand over the glue will become stuck to the bridge. Any shaking on the bridge (Such as stuggling to get free) while it holds a 50lbs passenger is enough to cause it to fall, as the ropes holding it up come untied.

The glue is, hopefully, going to stop them from casting spells or getting off the bridge in time for it to hit the bottom of the canyon, 50 feet down.

Any more ideas? I am going to post any more I get here. My goal is to not use magic or advanced kobolds as much as I can, with cheap items being the exception. However, I would love any ideas the playground has for cool, mechanical, original traps!

How do the Kobolds cross the bridge? They aren't known for lights.

How about bags of flour set in certain areas. The kobolds carry torches. Flour dust is very flammable.
Boom, you deal at least 1d6 area explosion and set them on fire (as it is an instantous fire effect as per the rules; ie why Fireball doesn't set you on fire).

[avr]

No mention of ye old boiling oil poured through a murder hole?

It might not work so well in RL, but a layer of flammable oil on top of water, with tight passages underwater for the bait kobolds to escape down should work in D&D.

On the subject of water, a flash flood to force the PCs on to a spiked grate or down a bladed passageway might do as one of your traps.

[Yeturs]

Nice ideas everyone! Thank you. Feel free to keep them coming!

I also wanted to elaberate a bit on my glue bridge trap. The bridge was going to be the only obvious way into the lair, but not well traveled by the kobolds. The purpose of the light was so the dark of a PC's hand passing over it would cause it to stick. I mean, the same could be done with heat sensitivity or only living, but that is what I came up with. Easy change.

Additionally, the way to circumvent that would be to not use the handles on the bridge. Increasing the DC, sure, but making you not glued down. Or flight. Flight tends to work.

And the Stone Cube would be the last line of defense, as that is as close as I can think to a no save just die nonmagic trap. It will likely just chop off a leg, or someone will be so paranoid they will find it early.

[ericgrau]

Careful how you word the description of the handholds. Pointing them out makes them suspicious. Not pointing them out and yet making the player grab them when he doesn't say anything about them is railroading.

You might want to say they look flimsy but give a +4 to the balance check or something, to distract from their real purpose yet while giving an opportunity to ask what the player does. The other way is to ask about everything, dangerous or not, though that can bog down the game.

It is still a small fortune in DM-modified sovereign glue though. This might solve both the trigger problem and the implausibility problem: Thin glass vials are inside hollowed out rope in some places. Grabbing the rope there crushes the vial. If the player declares he quickly removes his hand it'll dry 1 round later without holding the player, but it'll be harder to balance during that round. The first glue vial should be at least 10-15 feet into the bridge so it's hard to backtrack. Roll randomly to see if a particular vial is grabbed at all (blind luck). Carefully separating the threads of the rope can slowly locate the vials after they figure it out, though it's simpler to just not grab the rope any more.

[Gotterdammerung]

My 2 best traps:


First, take a real pit trap. Make it however deep you want. Add spikes if you want. Then cover the pit with a permanent illusion so it looks like regular floor. Then cover the space directly in front of the pit with another permanent illusion. Make this illusion look like a pit. Your party will approach the fake pit and most likely the physical members will simply jump across since it is only a DC 10 running jump. This means they will jump right over the fake pit, into the real pit. Now this is funny on several levels. First, the first guy jumping is usually full of bravado and is in for a nice surprise when spikes enter his body. And second, the entire rest of the party gets to see a guy jump over a pit and fall through a solid floor.



My second trap is more mundane and a little more elaborate. Again the party arrives at a pit trap. This one is longer though. Like 20 feet long. With more spikes at the bottom. On the ceiling they will notice monkey bar rungs spanning the gap. Tell them if they wish to traverse the pit using the monkey bars then it will be some kind of simple climb check or make something up. A cautious party will send someone across first to check the bars. Here is the trick. Once weight over 100 lbs is put on the middle rung, the entire ceiling (which is on a counterbalance) begins to fall, crushing whoever was on the middle rung against the spikes below and the ceiling above. Anyone on the outer rungs can make a reflex save to leap to one side or the other. Once the ceiling is settled, the party will realize that the top of the giant movable block served as the floor to a slime prison. Now the slimes are eye lvl with the dungeon floor and free to roam around and eat.



Both traps are extremely mean (especially the second one). So I can understand if you don't want to use them. But in all fairness, I warned them to bring a trapfinder and their response was a melee with a rogue dip and low search ranks.

[Yeturs]

Gotter, you are an evil man. If you dont mind, I think I will use those bad boys.

And eric, grand idea. I will modify my trap, as that sounds much better then my light sensitive version.

Keep them coming playground! I am hammering out a few more today, and will post them here.

[Duncan_Ruadrik]

My favourite trap is a gelatinous cube in a square room fashioned as a spiral. Door falls and locks behind PCs, leaving no choice but to move forward... Towards the gelatinous cube in the middle, which is moving towards them. Fun.

[Gotterdammerung]

Gotter, you are an evil man.

Don't you put that on me, Ricky Bobby!






If you dont mind, I think I will use those bad boys.

Naw, I don't mind. You can scale the deadliness of these traps up and down by adjusting the height of the fall, the reflex saves, the search/disable DC's and the damage of the spikes.